Wife goes on the hunt for household water waste

"Can I clean out the OSH buckets?" my wife asked a couple of weeks back. "Sure," I said. "Uh, why?"

"I want to put them in the shower stalls so we can save the water while letting it run to warm up."

I have a couple of OSH buckets for miscellaneous chores, but never thought of using them to save water, but such is the level of water conservation in our household. Only a day or so ago, my wife expressed concern we might be at risk of being fined $500-a-day because water from sprinklers at the side of house hits the sidewalk. Mind you, the amount of water "wasted" by the sprinklers is so minute that after an hour, there's scarcely a trickle running into the gutter.

The back story to all this is that four years ago when re-landscaping our yard, we put in a computer-operated system so we're actually using less water. Because of the drought this year, we disabled the system so we physically turn on the sprinklers twice a week for no longer than one hour on any of the three major "zones," which make up most of our lawn. We also use a drip-irrigation system for our garden.

Yes, I probably wash the dishes by hand more than I should instead of using the dishwasher. Yes, I also take showers daily instead of every other day, but people who know me probably don't mind that. I try and limit my water use to no more than 100 gallons a day. But that doesn't stop my wife from wanting to do more to conserve and working with me to cut my "wasteful ways."

Her fears of wasting water are well-founded considering how long this drought may last. A combination of mandatory and voluntary restrictions has resulted in a statewide water use reduction of 5 percent through May, short of the 20 percent sought by Gov. Jerry Brown. So we have to do more.

Woodland has been doing well in cutting back. We could do better, but overall, people and businesses have been cooperating to reduce water use.

"I like to say, having a browning lawn and a dirty car is a badge of honor," State Water Resources Control Board Chairwoman Felicia Marcus told The Associated Press. Well, we qualify. Our lawn is going brown and I've only washed our cars once this summer.

The regulations the board will consider Tuesday aim to put muscle behind conservation efforts and would give more authority to law enforcement to impose the restrictions, though it will be up to local governments on how and when to act. Woodland is already starting to get serious about saving water.

I've no problem with trying to conserve water, but my efforts are puny compared to water used by local agriculture, some of which is still wasted. Farmers like the Muller family, who are using drip irrigation in many of their hundreds of acres of fields, should be commended for their conservation efforts. Frankly, some growers couldn't make any money today unless they do conserve water.

Yet, despite the efforts of some farmers — and private people like me — we seem to have a conflict brewing. There are more almond and olive orchards being planted countywide and despite the fact many of these orchards have drip-irrigation systems, trees are still notorious for using water: lots and lots of water.

When I was a kid, my dad — in one of his many attempts to "strike it rich" — planted about 50 acres of trees on farmland that he owned wanting to sell them to new homeowners. He went by a couple of months later to see how the trees were doing and found they had all been pulled out by the farmer he'd hired to look after the site because the guy didn't want them "sucking up" the water going to his field of potatoes.

At our house, I thought about taking similar action. After all, if we really want to be serious about saving water then the trees have got to go. It was a brief thought. Paying a $500 fine would be far cheaper than facing my wife's wrath if I cut down a single tree.

Jim Smith is editor of The Daily Democrat. Email him at news@dailydemocrat.com or follow him on Twitter @newsie2001.